Knocking On Doors

I thought it was Knocking On Doors.

I’ve always been so shy in those kind of social situations.

Knocking on a door for the first time is like standing before a firing sqaud. I’d come to a new friend’s house, and sit across the street for fifteen minutes examining the surroundings, and weighing all the evidence... determining if I was at the right house.

If i knocked on the wrong house apparently the sky would fall in on me, leaving only a mangled left foot. If it looked like i might end up knocking on a wrong door, i'd just end the friendship.

I was wrong.

That was the easy part, still is. i should know, i've done it now for almost two full weeks.

It takes you two full weeks to know everything about anything, a relationship, a marriage, kids, all of it.

I recommend using the first two weeks of anything to base your entire estimation of it on.

side note: sarcasm is also sweet.

My first day of selling i found my finger pressing doorbells and my hand knocking doors and my face smiling and speaking and selling and doing and- no sky falling, no left mangled foot.

I don't hate knocking on doors.

I kinda like it.

even the "no soliciting" people can be fun, and you can laugh when you hear people yelling at you through the window.

I like the Knocking On Doors part. I've knocked on hundreds of them already. for real.

Don't know why it was so easy

(i doubt i've grown up or anything... the bank still scares me..)

I guess i just told myself it's time to let the "boy" die in that regard and i'm gonna do this, even spend the whole summer doing this, and so i'd better ignore all that emotional stuff and just get a going.

done and done.

1st lesson learned is:

1. Direct Selling (door to door) is the hardest job in the whole world mentally.

I thought i was pretty strong in the whole brain department... strong minded, strong willed - all that good stuff that can be bad stuff when you step on others.

I was wrong. My mind has gotten so smashed, crashed squashed and crumbled,

you'd not believe it unless you've done sales before.

Sales is the hardest profession.

Other jobs you can suck at and earn money.

Other Jobs you get paid for what you know.

Other Jobs are easy, you only need to work hard to do well, to get paid.

sales you can work hard and with all you've got and have nothing to show for it.

that is hard.

I've learned that sales is harder than i thought, and my mind is a weak, shaky, flighty thing.

2nd lesson learned is:

Salesmen are great people, a piece of the best.

Ultimate lesson:

It's not knocking on doors...

I hate sales.

I thought I liked sales and hated knocking on doors and bothering people, but I had it wrong. I like bothering people, I just HATE sales.

Sales sucks.

Everyday I go through a roller-coaster of fear, then I hate this, then ‘this is easy’, then ‘this is fun’, then ‘I hate this I hate this’, then ‘I’m never going to make money’, then ‘I’m gonna be the best ever’ then ‘I’m wasting my time, I hate this’ then ‘get yourself back in this game’ then ‘why can’t I be doing something I like and getting paid for it, rather than doing this and not getting paid for 90% of it?’ then ‘I’m doing this, I’m not doing this’ “im going to quit’ then ‘how do they do this all summer” ‘what time is it- are we done yet?’ then “I’m so awesome at this!” then “I’m quitting soon”.

And on and on.

And that’s on a good day when you don’t get stuck in a pity-party.

Knocking on Doors is fun, it's sales that is the worst stupidest job in the world, and there should be a statue of every man that does it.

I hate it.

But I’m not quitting.

I kinda want to see what happens if I just keep going.

Will I make no money and learn nothing?

Or will I learn ‘everything’?

I think I need to do this. I need to not quit. I need to follow this through all these hard days where I feel like I’m holding my mind and self-worth together with strands of cheap tape.

Who will I be after a summer of knocking on doors, by the hundreds? A summer of mental fight- of mastering my self and emotions?

I don’t think I’ll quit, though I can lie and say I’m not results-driven and pretend I’ll stay it out no matter what. But I don’t think I will. I think I WILL stick around. I want to know who I will be if NO MATTER WHAT,

I just keep

Knocking On Doors

You'll never believe it.

You'll never believe it... what happened...

Until i tell you.

no.

scratch that.

until i show you. (insert matrix music here).

show you what? you ask.

i don't answer questions. i show questions the door and say "come back when you're grown"

something cool has happened.

but i'm not ready to talk about it yet.

maybe in may.

(or i wrote 'maybe in may' purely for the alliteration of it... love the way it sounded, i won't willfully lie)

In the News.

Well Known Artist Drowns While Creating River Art

Kind of Ironic.

He is founder of the The First National Church of the Exquisite Panic, Inc.

Revelation of the Year

There are a million things more than i ever imagined that are under my complete control.

I've wasted mounds of mental energy worrying about things i can't control, and then making excuses and laying out false blame for things that i actually can control. It's a keen realization, and i now have some piles of things to take responsibility for, and happy to see a whole world everyday that has its future completely up to me. God has handed it to me, for me to choose what i'll do with it.

Got to get to doing it,

bye

Wrap

Tonight i finished a roll of plastic wrap from my mom's kitchen from 1996.

that's how we roll.

An afternoon Francis Ford Coppola's Vineyard

Last Wednesday:

Spent the afternoon drinking some great wine and touring Francis Ford Coppola's main vineyard, Rubicon.

[He recently renamed it, removing his last name from the label, since everyone was buying it because of his famous status, and coming to the vineyard like it was Disneyland, so he changed the name and starting charging something like 25 dollars to even get out of your car on his estate. He only wants serious wine people to come. The name Rubicon comes from the famous river crossed by Julius Caesar and his army, seeing they had passed the "point of no return"]

Francis acquired one of the oldest vineyards in Napa, with vines that are 2nd generation from a 1st generation vineyard in Bordeaux, France. He has bought up the property that had been split up. Rubicon Estate Winery is the very winery of the infamous Finnish sea captain Gustave Niebaum, who many Canadians learn about in school, since he started the Alaska Commercial Company and was the worlds leading fur trader, before buying the estate in Napa and producing the first Bordeaux style winery in the US. He took these U.S. wines, undervalued at the time, to the Worlds Fair in Paris in 1889, and won numerous Gold Medals

Coppola continues that tradition with their house wine, the Bordeaux style 'Rubicon', which is very tasty indeed.

We got to tour the vineyard behind the scenes via my sweet friend Lamar (he happens to be a manger, and Canadian, Briercrest alum - you might know him from the band Wooky)and get a view (far off) of their mansion. things we a tiny but hectic, since it's Francis' Birthday in a few days. Lamar knows his history, and satisfied our minds with the historic place, while enchanting our taste-buds with the Rubicon Wines

I tried a Cabernet Franc, only from 2006, but it was quite deadly, and had an incredible nose on it. I was very pleasantly surprised. I think my next wine love affair will be with Cab Franc... when i can afford it. I also had an astoundingly good Cabernet Sauvignon from 2005 that spent 2 years in American Oak, and rocked my socks off, as well as their tasty Bordeaux style Blend "Rubicon".

Bottle prices ranged as low as $9, though most are between 40-100$ or higher, and a number on the regular list are in the thousands. The highest on the list was over $5,000, served over the counter. Kind of hope you get a neat box for that. They have very old wine in the cellar, from the 1800's.

I also got to see some sweet historical stuff, like a wine barrel that was from the 1500's, and had these carvings of monks on it and stuff, i got to touch it and slap it around like a small red-headed child. awesome. I also got to see the very first tasting room to exist in Napa, it's the first door to your right when you enter the chateau. Cool.

I did get to see some cool stuff like one of his Academy Awards, a Golden Globe award, some other awards for filmmaking, music, writing etc. As well as an antique collection of 'light boxes' early film stuff and pre-film motion picture machines and such... Amazing.

Francis Runs a magazine called Zoetrope: All Story that has recently featured art by Guillermo Del Toro (director of Pan's Labyrinth, Hell Boy I and II, and others, like the up-coming Hobbit films) and they had, only a week or so ago had a Magazine release where they had Guillemo's original art displayed there.

I missed the Guillermo show, but I got a free copy of the magazine.

A video I found with an interesting quote from Francis

A bad episode: Flight of the Conchords (no spoiler)

Last week, sadly to say -since there has been some excellent episodes lately- the Concords had a bum episode.

It was called 'Evicted', Episode 22.

The basic plot idea was good, great even. Filled with potential, and maybe the easiest setup to write songs for, show's songs had no appeal and no sense of humor. On top of that, the dialogue was flat and you could feel them try to be funny. The best parts were the short bookends of them doing STOMP like stuff.

Over all, i'd rate this episode below the misfire that was "A Good Opportunity", Episode 13, because Episode 13 had great dialog and funny story stuff, just with lame songs. Evicted was bad in both worlds, and the saddest part is that the concepts for the situations were so good.

that's all i really wanted to say... ...i guess it was even worse since me and clapper watched it (via the amzing iChat) with his wife too, and so her limited exposure to the show saw little fruit.

It almost has that Murphy's Law feeling, when ever you try to show people stuff that is brilliant, that thing sucks that day. haha.